Croissants

A few weeks ago I was home alone and as it should be, I spent the time to bake. Or I have no life, it depends on how one looks at it. I baked croissants, a project that took some time, but since it is such things one does when one has time to spare (or?)  it seemed like a good idea. It took a little research and I used Sebastien Boudets guide how to fold and roll the dough, it was also his recipe I used. He is, after all, Frenchman so he ought to know a thing or two about croissants.

 

Croissants

600 g wheat flour

60 g sugar

12 g fleur de sel

½ egg for the dough + ½ egg for the brushing

10 g fresh yeast

350 g milk

50 g unsalted butter for the dough

300 g unsalted butter for the rolling of the dough

 

 

Day 1, evening:

Mix flour, sugar and salt on a pastry board and make a hollow in the middle, or simply in a bowl.
Add eggs and yeast. Add the milk a little at a time and work into a smooth dough. Let the dough rest for 45 minutes. Add the 50g butter to the dough and knead for a few minutes. Wrap the dough and let it rest at least 8 hours or overnight.

 

 
Day 2, morning:

Roll out the dough into a 1 cm thick rectangle. Put the 300 grams of butter between two parchment paper and bang it out until you have a plate that is half the size of the dough and 1 cm thick. Put the butter in the middle of the dough and fold over the dough so that the butter is completely covered. Roll out the dough gently into an elongated rectangular shape. Fold over a quarter of the dough toward the center, and then do the same with the other end so that the pieces meet in the middle. Fold the dough doubles and let it rest in the fridge for 2 hours. Repeat this procedure once more. After the second folding, roll out the dough into a rectangle again and cut out nice triangles and roll them up from the wide side down towards the narrow side.

 

 

 Place the croissants on a baking sheet and brush with egg mixed with a little water and salt. Prove them in a turned-off oven with a pan of hot water in the bottom of the oven (or you can freeze them and prove them another day when you need them) until they have doubled in size, it takes between 2-4 hours. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C and brush the croissants again with egg mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until they have a nice golden color.

 

 

Chocolate cake with salted caramel

Apparently we have had a little involuntary break from this blog ... We've had  vacation and it was certainly a vacation from everything. But we've done a lot during the two weeks of vacation we had from work (a little longer from the blog). For example, we had our third (3!) wedding party and I have had more than enough of parties, now I'm sick of arranging parties for some time to come.

Chocolate cake with salted caramel

180 g of wheat flour
300g caster sugar
90 g of cocoa
6 g of bicarbonate
4 g baking powder
60 g of rapeseed oil
180 g milk + 10 g of white wine vinegar
190 g water (or coffee if you like it)
2 large eggs
 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and butter up 4 molds á 15 centimeters in diameter (There will be some batter over which you could do cupcakes or something similar with). Add some parchment paper in the bottom of each.
Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix for about 2 minutes.
Spread the batter into the molds and bake in middle of oven 20 to 30 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes before removing it from the mold.

For the filling:
150 g unsalted butter, room temperatured
100 g salted caramel

 

Whisk the butter until it is fluffy and then add the salted caramel. Mix well. 

Chocolate frosting

45 g cocoa
90 g of boiling water
340g unsalted butter
65g icing sugar
a pinch of salt
450g chocolate


Melt the chocolate over a water bath or in the microwave and let it cool.
Mix cocoa with the boiling water and stir until the cocoa is completely dissolved and become a smooth paste.Stir the butter fluffy with icing sugar and salt for about 5 minutes in the machine.
Put the machine at low speedand add the melted chocolate. Mix until all the chocolate is well admixed. Add the cocoa mixture and stir until well mixed

Macarons with passion fruit curd

Now it really feels like the summer is here, and that feeling makes you long for some holiday. I have a full three weeks to go until my second holiday but I have a feeling that these weeks will go fast. We have now been married twice, once in Mexico and once here in Sweden, and now we have a third celebration with all our friends. Why not splurge once you do something like this? But if I should be honest it will feel good when it's all over and we can return to our rather unplanned daily life.

Macarons with passion fruit curd

Macarons
110g icing sugar
60 g of almond meal
60 g of egg white (about 2 eggs)
40 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
a few drops of green food coloring.

 
Whisk the egg whites and add the sugar a little at a time. Beat until you have a nice and shiny meringue.
Sift the icing sugar, almond flour and vanilla sugar in a bowl.
Fold in the dry ingredients in the meringue, one third at a time.
Drop in the food coloring and fold it gently.
Ladle over the batter into a piping bag and pipe up on parchment paper or on a silicon form. Let rest for 30-60 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C. Bake for about 12 minutes.
Let rest a few minutes and then match two shells together and pipe or use a teaspoon to add the filling.

 
Passion fruit curd

4 eggs
2 egg yolks
150 g sugar
8 passion fruit
125g butter

 
Add all ingredients except the butter in a bowl that can withstand heat. Put the bowl on top of a saucepan with simmering water and whisk until the mixture begins to thicken, it takes about 10 minutes. Remove the curd from the heat and add the butter, whisking until the butter is completely melted and mixed with the rest of the curd. Let cool slightly and pour into clean jars.

Lilac lemonade

This season of the year is so wonderful, when it's warm and sunny anyways. I often go around and marvel at how green and vivid ​​everything has become and has already forgotten about the long, long winter. This is the time when I'm more than happy to be outside all the time and I would love to take my laptop out of work and just sit outside and work.
Another nice thing about this season is that everything is blooming and smells so good, and lilac is one of my favorites.

Lilac lemonade

20 bunches lilac flowers
1 kg of sugar
1 liter of water
30 g of citric acid
1 lemon

 
Clear the lilacs so that only the flowers are left and rinse them. Boil water and sugar to a syrup and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Mix in the citric acid in the syrup. 

Add flowers and rinsed, thinly sliced ​​lemon in a bowl with a lid. Pour over the syrup while it is still hot and let cool. Store in a cool place for 3 days and then strain through a muslin. Pour in clean bottles.

 

Pulled pork

Knowing how good pulled pork tastes and, now, how easy it is to do it feels stupid that I have not tried to learn it sooner.
Take a piece of pigs meat, smear it with a good sauce and leave it in the oven for 5 hours.

Pulled pork on a tortilla.

First and foremost two things are needed, an ovenproof casserole with a lid and a piece of meat. The meat, a piece of cutlet, in the image below was nearly 1.5 kg before cooking. 

The recipe for spice sauce comes from Markos food.

• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon paprika, preferably smoked
• 1/2 fresh chili
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon syrup
• black pepper and salt
• water
• 2 tbsp oil

Mix all ingredients and rub the spice sauce on the meat. If the sauce is too thick add some water.

Place the pot near the bottom of the oven at 125 degrees for 5 hours.

After 5  hour in the oven.

Lift out the meat carefully and take it apart with two forks. It should come apart easily. Pour over what is left in the pan over the meat or make a sauce out of it.

After being handled by two forks.

 Serve with bread and salad.

Pulled pork served with bread and coleslaw.

Lemon curd- and mascarpone cake

The same day as my bacherlorette party took place, it was my best friend, Marias, birthday. My other best friend Caroline and I had planned a full day for her and I decided that I would bake cakes. I was completely unaware of my bachelorette party and therefore decided that a birthday is not a birthday without cake. But because my friends had decided that it was the day that they would abduct me, the cake layers had to stand alone without filling for a couple of days, one of the first things I said after I met them that day was, "but I have baked cakes". There were no cakes that day, instead I invited my friends over to our place for a late celebration for Maria.

Lemon curd- and mascarpone cake

Simple cake bases

4 eggs

170 g caster sugar

60 g white flour

80 g potato flour

1 tsp baking powder

I made two cake bases in a form that is 15 centimeters in diameter. They were pretty high so I cut them in two parts so that it became a cake with 4 layers.
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C. Begin to whisk the eggs and sugar really puffy. Mix together the dry ingredients and fold gently into the sugar mixture. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Filling:

200 g strawberries

100 g cream

100 g lemon curd 

1 tbsp muscovado sugar

Mash the strawberries with a fork and add sugar. Spread a layer on one of the cake bases.
  Whip the cream and fold the lemon curd in to it. Spread a layer on one of the cake bases. Layer the cake layers with the different fillings.

 
Mascarpone frosting
100 g mascarpone
100 g cream
80 g lemon curd

Whip the mascarpone so that it becomes smooth. Whip the cream as well and then fold the cream and the lemon curd into the mascarpone. Spread the frosting in a smooth layer across the cake with the help of a spatula.

Pita bread

We always had pita for tacos when I was younger and sometimes my mother did her own, there is not much pre-bought that can beat something home made​​. This time we did not fill it with tacos but with hummus and vegetables, super tasty! It has become quite obvious that hummus is a favorite of mine. Me and Johan is getting married soon and last weekend I had my bachelorette party. It contained both a quiz where the question "What is Pauline's favorite snack?" The answer was, of course, hummus, and I even got a meze dinner which included hummus.

Pita bread

25 g yeast

500 g water

1½ tbsp salt

1 tbsp honey

2 tbsp olive oil

780 g wheat flour

Crumble the yeast into a bowl and dissolve with some of the water. Pour in the rest of the water and salt, honey and olive oil. Add most of the flour and work into a smooth dough. Let the dough rise covered for 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees C. When the dough is finished fermenting, divide it into 8 equal pieces. Roll them into a ball and roll out into round cakes. Place the loaves on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 8 minutes.